Sunday afternoon ride

Scout likes me to rub her stomach while she intermittently chews my hand.
This is a distracting but cute animal photo, unrelated to the story.

Following yesterday's ride, I thought it would be a good idea to try out another trail. I remembered a nice dirt path along the Platte River. No, I'm not talking about the Platte River Trail, but instead a minor trail that many people might not even know exists. At least that's how I remembered it.

Before we set off, I checked over our bikes to make sure no tire leaks had cropped up overnight. All good, but Big Sis's bike sure got a good dose of mud. I guess that's what I should expect when I tell her that mountain bikes like to get dirty. As for my helper, she danced around in the bike barn to a rediscovered audio tape of Mojo Nixon and Skid Roper's album Bo-Day-Shus, a relic of my youth. It'll be a while before she can understand all of the lyrics, so it's safe listening for now. It might require some explanation eventually.

Mud. An important part of a healthy, balanced diet.

Busting a move to Mojo Nixon and Skid Roper.

As it turned out, in the approximately five years since I last rode the trail that I had in mind it had apparently become more popular, and marked. It now featured an actual trailhead placard, on which a notice was placed that it was closed to bikes. Bummer. So I had to piece together a Plan B. 

We rode a ways down the paved Platte River Trail, a place that I usually try to avoid on a weekend, especially with a kid in tow. There are just too many weekend warriors out in full kit on fancy road bikes, evidently either training for a race or trying for a personal best in getting to Chatfield Reservoir. In other words, lycra-clad speedsters with little patience for we slow or meandering explorers. So we rode the minimum possible on the paved part of the trail and shot off onto gravel or dirt spurs whenever we found them. In all, the ride wasn't quite up to the greatness of yesterday, but it wasn't bad.

Humming along, shortly before nearly running over a Common Garter Snake speeding across the trail. 

The Platter River Trail is kind of like a bike autobahn (fahrradbahn?), so I prefer the gravel frontage road when it is available.

Trail riding over the past two days was quite a bit of fun, but it's worth the effort to get to more out of the way places with more elevation change. Maybe next weekend we'll try for a somewhat longer ride.  I'm also thinking that an overnighter should be in the works.

Testing out the miniature effect setting on my new camera. Somehow, I don't think I've quite got it figured out.